


Cooler Than Me

by Platypodes



Series: The Cool Kids [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Fosterstuck, Friendship, M/M, Sloooowwww build, Sorry D;
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-06-17 01:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15450114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Platypodes/pseuds/Platypodes
Summary: You've got designer shades just to hide your faceAnd you wear them around like you're cooler than meAnd you never say 'hey' or remember my nameAnd it's probably 'cause you think you're cooler than me





	1. John

**Author's Note:**

> Well this was a long time coming v_v

Dave sat outside next to Terezi, scorching sunshine peeking over the edges of his shades. There was always a big push to get kids into foster homes before the start of summer. Because, shit, housing them after school and on weekends was one thing, but having to take care of them _all the time_?  
Fortunately, the two of them were pros at this. In the farthest corner of the yard, they were sitting on a picnic table with their feet up on the bench seat, watching the well-dressed well-meaning couples wander around the scattered groups of foster kids. Like a Farmer’s Market for kids…  
Dave and Terezi had been through this dog and pony show a dozen times before. They’d gotten good enough to scare most couples away by expression alone. Most people here were looking for a good deed. Someone doe-eyed and grateful, someone quiet, who wouldn’t cause too much trouble. Someone like Nepeta. She was snatched up early, as usual. Dave just hoped it stuck this time.  
Meanwhile, he and Terezi had managed to stave off any ‘buyers’ through all of June and most of July. Katkat too… But Dave wasn’t sure he was actually trying. That scowl just came glued to his face.  
The ones you had to watch out for were the ones that looked like they were on a mission. Who looked more like they were at Walmart with a grocery list than browsing an outdoor market. Who knew exactly what they were looking for, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. From the moment Dave saw him, he knew. Nice hat and business suit, and looking like he’d just found out where the peanut butter was on aisle three.  
Behind his shades, he had just enough time to shoot Terezi a distressed expression. He knew there’d be no talking him out of it. 

"So what am I supposed to be?" Dave asked when they were in the car later, heading back to the man’s house.  
"I'm sorry?" the man said, pretending to be confused. Hell, maybe he was confused. But Dave had been through this routine enough times to know it didn't matter. Across the dozens of homes he was bounced between before his brother could get him out, there was always someone they wanted you to be. Some wanted you to be a babysitter or a housekeeper, some wanted a replacement for a child who had died or recently left home, some wanted a paycheck, and some just wanted a punching bag.. So Dave didn't care if he acted dumb or not. They always wanted something. 

He rephrased the question-  
"What made you want a foster kid?"

"Ah! Well, I have a son," he said, as though this explained everything. 

And maybe it did, he thought, when he saw the son. Buck teeth, thick glasses... a total dweeb. Was he being cast as a big brother, or a body guard? Did he want him to be his kid's best friend?

Well, too bad, Dave thought, scowling. Maybe at one point he would've played along, when he was young and naive and desperate for a parent's approval, but not today. The sight of him, the thought of it, made his blood boil. He should be at home with his Bro right now. Or at the very least back at the house with Terezi and Karkat. Not here. His hands tighten into fists. He was sick of playing someone else's son. He wanted to go home. 

"What?" he said, glaring at the kid in the doorway. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 Your dad’s been out for over an hour. You sit on the stairs waiting, like you have for the last forty minutes, but when you hear the lock start to shift on the door, you stand up so you can look like you just happened to be coming down the stairs right now. 

Your dad’s been talking about fostering another kid since forever. You just hope it’s someone you can hang out with, and not, like, a three year old or something. But even though you’ve been imagining every kind of person it could possibly be, no part of you is ready for the one that walks through the door.  
Pale blonde hair falling lazily over his face, eyes hidden behind a pair of pointed shades, he looks like a teen model or movie star. The kind of person you see on TV and not in real life. Your heart starts to beat quicker and you forget that you were supposed to be playing nonchalant and just stand gaping on the stairs.  
And, okay, maybe you're self-aware enough to realize what you're feeling isn't really love. But you can't stop looking at him. He's just so.. cool. He's like every action movie hero you've ever looked up to. And right now all you want, the only thing you want, is for him to like you.

Unfortunately, you're bad at expressing your emotions. 

"What's with the lameo shades?" you ask.  
"John, this is Dave. He's going to be living with us for a while," your dad tells you, moving into the hall. And Dave doesn't say anything.  
"Uh.. yeah! Duh! You told me that before you left already."  
You glance at the cool kid, but he’s still not talking. Not even after that sick burn..  
“Why don’t you show Dave to his room?” your dad suggests.  
“Sure. Yeah. Cool,” you say, trying to recapture that chill you were supposed to be having. 

The cool kid follows you to his room then slams the door in your face. You don’t see him again until your dad tells you to get him for dinner. 

You hear his voice as you walk down the hall, and realize his door his slightly ajar. Dave is on the phone. You stop outside his door, holding your breath and listening. You know you shouldn't, but you don't want to interrupt.. And also, maybe, you're a little curious about the mysterious cool kid. But mostly it's the other thing.. 

"So why do you keep going back to him, Tez?" he's saying. "You know he makes you feel like shit." His voice is softer than you could have imagined. Phone to his ear, he’s leaning back in the computer chair, swinging back and forth, pushing and catching himself with one sneaker on his desk legs.  
"Yeah, me too." he says regretfully. "Don't worry I'll think of something."  
Spinning slowly in his chair, Dave finally notices you standing in his doorway. He swings the chair around again and lowers his voice.  
"I gotta go. We can talk later. For now just.. I don't know, go listen to Beyonce or something."  
"Haha. Yes, it fucking is. So take that shit to a pharmacy and get all drugged out on girl power."  
"Of course. Yeah, Bye Tez."

He hangs up the phone and stares at you blankly. His expression is neutral, but his voice is aggressive, "What do you want?"  
"Was that your girlfriend?" you ask.  
"No." he monotones. You wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. 

"Dad told me to tell you that dinner's ready,” you say, finally.  
"Cool."  
He stands up and follows you to the door as you retreat out of his room. You get one step down the hall before you hear a door slam behind you. 

"Aren't you coming to dinner?!"  
"Nope!" he shouts through the wood. Then immediately cranks up his music. 

"Ugh!" 

You roll your eyes and leave the stupid cool kid to his stupid cool kidding.


	2. Karkat

It's been a few weeks since the last kid found foster parents and by now the group home had pretty much stopped trying, resigned to dealing with you lonely unlovable fucks until the start of the school year. Among those left behind were you, Terezi, and Sollux. Persistent insomnia, mental health issues, and blindness were apparently too much to expect otherwise well meaning young parents to deal with. That's why you only ever got the shitty ones. You think Gamzee is still around too, but only because he was MIA for like six out of the first seven weeks of summer. Most people have forgotten that he even lives here anymore. You haven't spoken to him in months. The only way you even know when he's around is that Terezi will disappear as well. 

You want to ask her about it, but you don't know how. No one will ever hear you say it out loud in a million years, but you kind of wish that blonde fuck was here...

Walking down the stairs, you hear Terezi talking on the phone and you can tell from the tone of her voice alone that she’s talking to Dave. You know you shouldn’t, but you stop to listen, holding your breath so you can hear her from across the room. 

“No.. not really.” She sighs. “I don’t know, Dave. He always catches me at the worst possible moments. Whenever I'm feeling shitty about myself, there he is. He's like a freaking greyhound for self-loathing... God, no wonder he's all over Karkat all the time." 

Umm.. Rude! Okay, suddenly you don't feel so bad about snooping!

She leans her head back on the armrest of the couch, her tone changing. "I miss you. I wish you were here." A small smile creeps onto her face. "Heh. Is that your official prescription, Dr. Strider?" she asks, some of her old snark back in her voice. "Alright, will do." she says, after a pause. "Stay cool, cool kid. Alright. See you later. Bye." 

She hangs up the phone and turns accusatorily in your direction. 

"Dave?" you ask, casually, finishing walking down the stairs. You don't even pretend you weren't eavesdropping because you know she could tell the minute you walked out of your room.

She shrugs her shoulders and says nothing, but you can tell she’s down about it. You sit down next to her on the couch. “Having problems with Gamzee?” you ask, sympathetically, despite the dig she made about you earlier. To be honest, you haven't been that close with him lately. She shrugs again.

Normally you would complain, but this is more communication than you’ve gotten out of her in the last few weeks. She’s been different lately, not like when Dave was gone. It’s something else. And you think you know what (or who!) that might be. 

Shrugging back (not that she could see it) you change the subject. "How's he doing?" you ask, meaning Dave. The guy he left with looked kind of.. odd. Like he thought he was in a film noir from the fifties or something. Like he could either be the most boring dude ever, or a total pyscho. "What's the new family like?" 

"Who cares?" she says, but at least her voice came alive a little. She grins, showing her teeth. "Operation: Ditch Annoying Foster Fam is a go." 

"Hmm?" You lean back, staring up at the food stained ceiling thoughtfully. A lot of people dreaded going to a new foster home (would they be nice, would their kids like you, would they kick you out again?) but few people took such relish in forcing them away as Dave and Terezi did. Honestly, you usually just prayed things would hold together for a full semester. Switching schools three or four times a year, you barely had time to figure out all the things you were behind in before moving on to the next place. No wonder your grades were tanked.

"You couldn't come up with a better name than 'Operation: Ditch Annoying Foster Fam'?" is all you ask.  
"It’s ironic.” she tells you, dismissively. 

"Whatever. Want to play video games?" you ask. Terezi shrugs, but she doesn't say no. You figure getting stomped on Street Fighter isn't a bad way to spend your summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been writing things on my phone a lot recently, using a swipe keyboard. So of there's a sentence that just completely doesn't make sense, that will probably be why. XP
> 
> Let me know and I will fix it
> 
> (Swypos are the worst @_@)


	3. John

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay. Again. Obviously I can't be trusted to stick to any kind of schedule, but I am still writing this and I do already have the ending laid out. I'll try my best to get us there. OTL
> 
> Edit: Got my notes mixed up and forgot to add one of the sections at the beginning. Fixed now (3/9/19).

Walking down the hall in the afternoon, you hear what must have been an argument between your dad and the cool kid going on behind closed doors. 

“It’s not ‘child abuse’ to insist you go to school, Dave,” you dad is sighing wearily, and though you don’t catch the flurried reply, the door wrenches open a moment later and you’re confronted with an annoyed and flustered looking teen. 

If he’s at all startled to see you there, he certainly doesn’t miss a beat. “Move,” he says, flatly, fixing his glasses on you in a leveled stare. 

“Like this?” you ask, intentionally moving to block his path even more. Without reacting, he shoves past you and slams the door of his room behind him, leaving you to kick yourself and ask why the hell you had to act like that. 

 

***

 

It’s some time after 10 p.m. when you leave your room, picking your way over the trays of food left outside your ‘new brother’s’ door. Dave has still refused to leave his room since yesterday. Another parent might say he ought to be stricter. Put his foot down. But your dad knows it's harder to be on a hunger strike when food is right there whenever you want it. Unrelated to whatever his deal is, you've been having trouble falling asleep recently and decided that an hour and a half of staring at your ceiling is more than enough. Stepping over the fish fingers and peas, you walk downstairs to living room. You're still reading on the couch when you hear a stair creak behind you.

“It's not going to work, you know,” you tell him, without looking up from your book. He doesn't reply, and you didn't really expect him to anyway. You continue, “Trying to get him to give up on you.” A shuffle of slippers or socked feet indicates that Dave is at least still behind you. You hold your page with a Game of Thrones bookmark and turn around, resting your arm on the back of the sofa.

“You want to know why he picked you out of all the kids?” you asked, watching him intently.  Dave doesn't say anything, but he doesn't move either. Not a muscle. You take that as a yes. “Because they asked him to. Because he’s the one they call for problem kids that no one else can handle. We’ve had more angry foster kids coming through here than your entire house combined.”

You turn around and flop down on the sofa again, while Dave stays exactly as he was; motionless and silent. Silence swallowed you both. It stretched into something punctuated and aggressive.

“So?” he asks the cold facade of the dim lit living room. You’re the one holding the silence now, while he seems compelled to break it again and again.

“You think that makes a difference?”

“You think I can’t-”

“I’m adopted,” you tell him suddenly. His momentum dissipates. You glance over again, watching his silhouette in the light of the kitchen door. “I’m adopted, so.. That’s how I know. It’s not going to work.”

He doesn’t respond, so you shrug and go back to reading your book. After a moment, he turns towards the kitchen, a single run-on murmur following him “justryinagetsome goddamnapplejuiceupinhere didntaskforyourlifestoryjegus..” 

A few seconds later you hear a rattle of glass bottles as the fridge door slams, and then the creak of the stairs again. You grin to yourself once you're sure he's out of sight, proud that something you said was able to ruffle his feathers a little. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry is short too. x_x


	4. Karkat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey all!
> 
> I got my notes mixed up from last chapter and forgot to add one of the sections at the beginning. I've fixed it now (as of 3/9/19), and it's pretty short anyway. Just wanted to let you know. xP

You sit on the floor of your bedroom, balancing a decade old laptop (that you’re pretty was at some point ‘liberated’ from your local high school) on your knee, theoretically doing the summer homework you had been putting off until now. You’d like to tell yourself you didn’t do it because you didn’t know where you’d be going to school yet, but that’s a lie. You pretty much knew you wouldn’t be going anywhere from the get go. This is just normal kid laziness.  
  
Sollux is sitting on the floor across from you, scribbling calculus problems between lines of code. The only reason he’s doing it at all is because you're making him.  
  
That being said, you’re not actually doing your homework right now… More of a ‘special research project’. You’re going through your friends’ social media accounts. Researching their parents, looking for any red flags. You've done this ever since the Nepeta thing. Because whenever you feel guilty about something (and you pretty much feel guilty about everything) you tend to obsess over it constantly from then on. And sometimes that manifests itself in low-key Facebook stalking.

Nepeta is out in the country somewhere with an older couple. There’s not a lot of information about them (their Facebook page is mostly full of confusing messages followed by their children reminding them this is their public profile and not a private messaging app) but if nothing else, you’re pretty sure she can overpower them.

Gamzee (who apparently did get placed with someone and just never bothered to tell anyone) is easier to find. You know he had to be somewhere nearby, since he’s still constantly over here, fooling around with Terezi. His parents kind of seem like scumbags, if you’re honest, but at least scumbags whose kids have not have any outwardly apparent injuries in the last 24 months. You scroll through the Facebook pictures of their previous foster kids, looking for any signs of malnutrition, poor hygiene, or suspicious lack of pictures or communication corresponding to the time they were with them. All of which are things you found on an online checklist for signs of child abuse. Everything looks okay though.

Going the extra mile in stalkery, you manage to find one of their former foster kids on Facebook; a purple-haired 19-year-old with gauges and a nose ring. You and send them a message, stating that you’re also a foster kid and want to know what your new parent might be like.

 

Before you can move on, Sollux pokes you in the knee with his sneaker. "Hey. Pay attention to me.." he complains at you, grinning. He has that look in his eyes that means you’re pretty sure ‘pay attention to’ really means ‘make out with’. “I’m busy,” you tell him gruffly.

Undeterred, he slides across the ground towards you. “Come on,” he says, his fingers making their way up your arm. “We’ve been working for hours,” -you’re pretty sure it’s been, like, forty minutes- “Let’s take a break.”

You glance over at his hand, considerably tempted for a moment, but then shrug it off. "Duck off," you say. “I’m in the middle of something.”  
Giving up, he sighs, falling back against the side of the bed. "Lame." he says, and goes back to coding on his laptop.

You look back down at yours, continuing your project. Dave’s guy is the hardest to find, since Terezi didn’t even give you so much as a name. You eventually find him in a website for fedora enthusiasts.. which was one hell of a long shot you can't believe actually worked. The guy didn’t have much social media, but at some point he linked to a school fundraiser event on Facebook created by someone called ‘John BaconandEggbert’. Despite only knowing that he goes to Alternia Academy, once participated in a fundraiser for a high school improv club, and thinks having a fake last name on Facebook is funny, you immediately find this person annoying and resolve to hate him going forward.

You follow the link to his page and start scrolling through it. In most of the pictures you can view (kid needs to lock down his privacy settings), they feature a buck toothed kid occasionally standing next to the same fedora-wearing man. Hmmm.

“Did Dave mentions anything about having a sibling?” you say.  
“How would I know?” Sollux asks, not looking up from his computer. You were probably just thinking out loud.

Dave doesn’t appear in any of his pictures, but then again, you can’t imagine Dave letting these people take his picture, unless he knew them better or was doing in ‘ironically’. It doesn't matter anyway. Dave’s own instagram is far more revealing; boldly declaring he’s on ‘day four of the hunger strike’, despite the two pizza crusts and half empty glass of orange juice that are visible in the background of the picture. You snort and shake your head, laughing quietly to yourself (and possibly giving away the fact that you are not writing you history essay on World War II Germany to Sollux).

 

Nose ring has gotten back to you in the meantime. He says they were all right, not really there a lot but never did anything bad, which is about as much as any of you can really hope for.  
  
You close your laptop and breathe out heavily. Everyone is safe. As far as you can tell.

You’d rather die than admit to being so damn sentimental, but when you’re not able to keep an eye on your friends, like physically co-located kind of eye on them, you can’t help but get anxious.  
  
For whatever reason, this shitty ass house and its borderline neglectful guardians began to feel like a safe haven to you. It’s no wonderland, but it feels controllable. A controllable kind of bad, different from when you’re all separated in different situations, under someone else’s power. _Better the evil you know.._  
  
And despite making fun of Dave and Terezi for saying the exact same thing, a part of you knows you’d feel a whole lot better if you all just stayed put in this place and never left.

But like you said, you’re never going to admit that shit in a million years. So what does it matter?

Laptop closed, you turn back to Sollux, “Now.. what were you saying about that beak..?”


End file.
